half-truths, fibs and damned lies

A number of things have made me think about lying these last few days. Naturally one tries to limit the number of lies one tells (‘you look great’ always tends to go down better than ‘you look like shit’ for some reason) but I’ve discovered some people- who you least suspect – tell whoppers from time to time, usually to win a point of some kind. For example my completely trustworthy friend A____, the mother of one of daughter’s school pals, was telling me about her new 4x4 offroad car- is it diesel I asked. Yes she said. Now I knew it wasn’t because I had looked at the back badge the day before, but she obviously felt the need to impress me with its superior fuel (diesel is preferred in the desert)- even though I could easily find out and probably would. Weird eh? Should I confront her about this grave falsehood? No way!

My view is we all need a chance to lie from time to time with NO BAD CONSEQUENCES. I tell my kids whoppers on this principle- well they remember how I climbed Everest and then abseiled down the volcano like Bear Grylls when I got to the top- the first Englishman to do so. See- feels good doesn’t it? Or maybe not. Being LIED TO is a whole different ball game. You feel cheated and abused. The thing is- try to get into a mutual lying relationship with someone where you both REALLY APPRECIATE each other’s monster falsehoods. Kind of the reverse of most relationships I suppose. Others have similar ideas as you will see from the below- news of which prompted this post.

My Argentine friend Carlos Guiterrez has finally expanded his pointless lie parties to full pointless lie therapy sessions. Carlos believes we should not deny ourselves the chance to tell whoppers, as long as they are pointless. He thinks that telling lies that actually advance us is a bit pathetic not to say criminal or even addictive. He is against all this. His lie parties were all about breaking down the taboos on lying and there was no ‘call-my-bluff’ element where lies were revealed (which is great fun but different fun); instead the idea was to get people used to lying for fun as a form of relaxing leisure time activity. Lie therapy is for addicted truth tellers- those who can’t lie even to save a friend from the firing squad to take a somewhat extreme example. It is also a great way of loosening up for journalists and lawyers and other folk who are heavily penalized for lying professionally. Carlos is more well known for his art work and he was for two years an apprentice of Xul Solar. You can see his pictures at www.cgartba.es

Go on! Find a partner you can exchange pointless lies with today! Maybe you can even tickle each other too.